Wicked: An Adaptation Of An Adaptation Of An Adaptation

Victor Fleming and King Vidor made movie history when they made the timeless, inventive and fantastical The Wizard Of Oz in 1939. The spinoff film Wicked, based on the book series The Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire and a musical book by Winnie Holzman, was adapted into a hugely successful broadway musical in 2000, and is still delighting audiences globally. The wicked magic continues with the first in a two-part movie event. Part 2 is scheduled for released in November 2025.

Wicked is directed by Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights (also a musical)) and written by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox (Cruella, The Lost Kingdom). As the cinema gods would have it, Chu attended the stage production at the Curran Theater in San Francisco when it first opened. He was smitten ever since.

Wicked (the movie) tracks the touching journey of Glinda Upland (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), two students at Shiz University who could never be part of the same sorority because they’re so different.

Glinda is gilded by privilege and popularity while Elphaba is navigating unpopularity and scorn due to her iridescent green skin which gives her powers she can’t control or fully comprehend. This is her struggle of being othered. She’s fierce and wants to be left alone. Glinda similarly, can’t properly handle the power of popularity and adoration.

Together they form an unlikely bond as they both step into their power until a cataclysmic event rips them apart. This event is a profound encounter with The Wizard Of Oz. The pair part ways and later reunite to fulfil their destinies as Glinda the Good Witch of the East and the Wicked Witch of the West.

The Characters Of Oz

The original characters of Oz were created by L. Frank Baum in 1900 in his immortal book called The Wizard Of Oz. In 1995, Gregory Maguire reimagined these characters in a pre-Dorothy (Judy Garland) world which explored the “untold story the other witches.” Notably, how two best friends became nemeses.

The original incarnation of the story in 1939 spoke to the eerily similar times in the early twentieth century as much as it speaks to the world almost a century later in Wicked.

The intelligent Animals of Oz are demonized and blamed for every social ill in the film. They are literally and metaphorically stripped of their voices. There is a charismatic leader Oz (Jeff Goldblum) who seduces his enthusiastic followers into betraying their loved ones through fear, hatred and the promise of a better life rather than hard facts. That is a key reason why Wicked is touted as “the untold story” rather than the origin story of Oz. It’s prophetic and chilling in terms of how the current social and political landscapes have done a full circle. It doesn’t feel much like Kansas anymore.

The beauty of film is that it can fully immerse its audience into different worlds like Munckinland, Shiz University and Emerald City much better than the stage which would make so many set changes impractical.

In a musical, the elements of character building are shown through both dialogue (Winnie Holzman) and song (Gregory Maguire). Both stage and screen can utilize these vehicles to enrich the story.

Wicked can be stripped back into two core themes – good and evil. The first film shows how Elphaba becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, and the second will show her best friend, Glinda, becomes her nemesis as the Good Witch of the East.

Are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?

“Elphaba and Glinda are torn apart by their world. They have to first find their way to each other. Ultimately, they have to sacrifice for one another,” states producer Marc Platt.

Like many cinematic arch enemies, Elphaba and Glinda started out hating each other and became inseparable friends. They are evolving works in progress in a continual process of discovering, hiding, and revealing parts of themselves.

The story focuses on the complex layers of female friendship and the indelible impact they have on each other’s lives.

“It was an incredible opportunity for the musical’s producer Stephen Schwartz and I to revisit this world. Coming back into it, we realized that there were aspects of the story that we wanted to explore more deeply, and with more nuance. When we got the go-ahead for two films, we knew we’d have the ability to keep everything we wanted to keep, and still expand certain key moments. We are telling the same story, while allowing it to blossom into something new,” says Winnie Holzman.